Gaza power plant to be refitted by May – Maan

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — The rehabilitation of the sole power plant in the Gaza Strip will be complete next month, the head of the PA power authority said on Friday.

The $3 million project funded by the Islamic Development Bank will help alleviate the power crisis in the Gaza Strip, Omar Kittaneh said in a statement.

Re-kitting the power station is one tenet of a deal agreed in late February to end the widespread power outages after Egypt cut fuel supplies via underground tunnels weeks earlier.

Officials have also agreed to link the Gazan electricity grid to Egypt’s, as well as converting the coastal enclave’s sole power plant from diesel to gas.

In late-March, Egypt agreed to supply fuel to Gaza through the Rafah crossing once a network of pipes is laid down, and in the interim, fuel is being shipped from Israel through PA intermediaries.

Kittaneh said equipment to rehabilitate the power plant, which was damaged in Israeli military operations in 2006 and 2008, was shipped Friday. Four 25 mega volt-ampere power generators will be brought into Gaza on Sunday.

He added that the work will restore the power plant to the same capacity prior to Israel’s 2006 bombing.